Using Emulator Express to Run and Debug a Cloud Service Locally

Updated: November 21, 2014

By using Emulator Express, you can test and debug a cloud service without running Visual Studio as an administrator. You can set your project settings to use either Emulator Express or the full emulator, depending on the requirements of your cloud service. For more information about the full emulator, see Run an Azure Application in the Compute Emulator. Emulator Express was first included in Azure SDK 2.1, and as of Azure SDK 2.3, it is the default emulator.

When you create a new project in Azure SDK 2.3 or later, Emulator Express is already selected. For existing projects that were created with an earlier version of the SDK, follow these steps to select Emulator Express.

Before you use Emulator Express, you should be aware of some limitations:

Emulator Express isn't compatible with IIS Web Server.

Your cloud service can contain multiple roles, but each role is limited to one instance.

You can't access port numbers below 1000. For example, if you use an authentication provider that normally uses a port below 1000, you might need to change this value to a port number that's above 1000.